– hails success of the year-end football activities

GUYANA Football Federation (GFF) president, Wayne Forde, has issued an apology for the over-capacity crowd at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall on Saturday evening.

The GFF, in collaboration with the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation, hosted the final for their Year-End Futsal championship at the country’s premier indoor sport facility, which saw Sparta Boss claim the tournament’s $1M first-place prize in a dramatic 5-3 penalty shoot-out against Bent Street.

However, many were alarmed and reprimanded the event’s organisers for the crowd that crammed into the venue since the country is seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases, and the National Task Force having regulations in place that prohibit large gathering, especially at sport events.

Ironically though, the National COVID-19 Task Force was present at the venue, checking patrons for proof of vaccination. The event only catered to fully inoculated players, fans and officials.

Forde, at a press conference hosted yesterday as a post-mortem of the federation’s year-end activities, made it clear that the GFF has always put the wellbeing of its community first.

He added that they “continue to place the highest value of consideration on the safety of our players, officials, coaches, fans and community of stakeholders. It is, therefore, with great regret and sadness that we witnessed what took place at the final of the futsal tournament last weekend.”

Forde stressed on the obvious difficulty of controlling such a large, unexpected number of people in a small space, but admitted that it was clearly wrong and unacceptable that an over-capacity crowd was allowed entry into the building, which he added “created an unnecessary hazard to public health and runs against everything we stand for at the GFF.”

“Let me be clear that the GFF and its partner Kashif & Shanghai take full responsibility for this outcome. We have launched a thorough internal investigation to understand what went wrong and why, and how this can be addressed in the appropriate way,” Forde reaffirmed.

The GFF president believes that it is “of vital importance that we set an example to others and I would like to emphasise strongly that, barring this single event, the three year-end tournaments took place in full accordance with the regulations and in a safe and secure environment. We would like to thank the vast majority of fans who cooperated with us by adhering to the rules, guidelines and COVID 19 protocols.”

Forde pointed to the numerous sporting events globally being held during the pandemic, stating, “we even saw supporters breaking into the Euro 2020 final at Wembley in the UK, during one of the most well-resourced events the world of sport has ever seen.

Despite these challenges, we have also seen that, in most countries, sport has returned and that lessons have been learned from mistakes to ensure competitions can continue in the right conditions.”

GFF boss is of the opinion that sport must be allowed to continue as long as the conditions allow, stating that in football, in particular, Guyana must not be left behind, but admitted that this cannot come at the expense of public health.

The GFF, he said, “will continue to work with the authorities and task force to host football tournaments in the safest and securest environments possible.”

“We will now draw a line under the regrettable events of last week, learn the lessons from what has been an incredible month of football, and look to the coming year,” Forde said.

Forde labelled the GFF hosting of its Super 16, Futsal and Women’s Championship, as a success.

“As we look to the future, we will be conducting a full review and debrief of each tournament, as will all of our participating clubs and members. This will provide vital feedback to help us improve our work in the years ahead,” the GFF president said.

Forde thanked “all the players, fans, match officials, organisers and clubs who contributed to the delivery of these year-end tournaments. We look forward to a successful and busy 2022 as we strive to bring football back at all levels of the game in a safe and secure way.”